Category: Women’s College Basketball

Purdue head coach links Lauren Betts to Boilermaker legend Zach Edey

Purdue women’s basketball coach Katie Gearlds effusively praised UCLA superstar Lauren Betts, comparing her to Purdue legend Zach Edey.

After the UCLA Bruins defeated Purdue 83-49 to match the best-ever start to a season in Bruins’ history, Boilermakers head coach Katie Gearlds had kind words for UCLA coach Cori Close and her team. During the postgame press conference, a reporter asked Gearlds about the Bruins’ center, Lauren Betts. The reporter referred to Betts as “one of the best” post players in the country, but Gearlds cut the reporter off. “Not one of,” Gearalds said. “The best post player in the country. Probably National Player of the Year, right? She’s that good.” Gearlds compared Betts to a Purdue great, Zach Edey, who won Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year last season and is now with the Memphis Grizzlies. 

“It’s like Zach Edey. You gameplan everything around her and the other kids come in and make shots,” Gearalds said of Betts. “We play a lot of good post players in the Big Ten, but not anyone like that.”

Betts led the Bruins with 17 points and seven rebounds in the win, despite playing just 22 minutes in the blowout win. Betts has also been able to take the brunt of the opponents’ defensive attention and still produce while making things significantly easier for her Bruin teammates. 

Gearlds also shared how Close would call and encourage the head coach, who’s in her fourth season as the Boilermakers head coach.

“I talk to Coach Cori all the time. She’s like ‘Kate’,” Gearlds said, while doing an impression of Close. “It took me nine years to get it turned around here. You got to stay with it, you got to trust your process.”

Now Close and UCLA will try to secure the best start in program history on Sunday at home against Northwestern. 

USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb publicly supports first responders

Lindsay Gottlieb and the rest of the Trojans are thinking of everyone in LA and personally know people whose lives have been uprooted by the wildfires.

On Wednesday night, USC women’s basketball racked up a huge road victory over No. 8 Maryland. While the Trojans were taking down the Terrapins on the East Coast, however, a tragedy was unfolding back in LA. As the game was being played, wildfires continued to ravage Southern California’s urban areas, destroying numerous homes and businesses.

During her postgame press conference, USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb made sure to touch on this.

“We’ve been on the road for whatever it is now, five days, and our city is on fire,” Gottlieb said following Wednesday’s game. “It’s been hard to be away and watch those scenes.

“Just wanna send our thoughts and prayers to the first responders, to those impacted—I have friends that have been displaced, I know our players probably do too. That’s more important obviously than what we’re doing.”

USC is currently scheduled to host Penn State at Galen Center Sunday evening. Given that several other major sporting events in Los Angeles have been either postponed or moved, it will be a situation to monitor as the game gets closer.

Women’s basketball rolls past Wisconsin 79-58

Tina Langley’s team ran its winning streak to five games on Tuesday.

Coach Tina Langley and the Washington Huskies women’s basketball team extended their winning streak to five straight games inside Alaska Airlines Arena on Tuesday night as they cruised to a 79-58 win over the Wisconsin Badgers.

After a slow start, which saw them trailing 17-11 at the end of the first quarter, the Huskies outscored the Badgers 20-8 in the second quarter and didn’t look back. Guard Elle Ladine led the way for Washington, pacing all scorers with 23 points on a 9-17 day from the field, adding 3 assists, 2 rebounds, a block, and a steal to her bottom line.

Forward Dalayah Daniels continued on a dominant run during her final season with 17 points and 11 rebounds, her third straight double-double and fourth of the season. The graduate student also played stellar defense, collecting 3 blocks and 3 steals.

Four of Washington’s five starters ended the night in double figures, with Sayvia Sellers and Tayra Eke adding 16 and 14 points respectively. The win pushed the Huskies up to 12-4 on the season and 3-1 in Big Ten play, while the Badgers fell to 10-6 on the season and just 1-4 in conference action.

Next up for the Huskies, they’ll hit the road for a matchup with the Michigan State Spartans in East Lansing on Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. PST.

UCLA should hold upper hand in Big Ten matchup against Purdue

UCLA has a big statistical advantage over Purdue, but watch out for the Boilermakers’ 3-point shooting. The Bruins will need to guard the arc.

It’s true that the No. 1-ranked UCLA Bruins play in a loaded Big Ten Conference that’s littered with title contenders. However, UCLA women’s basketball won’t have to face one of those teams on Tuesday when the Bruins meet 7-7 Purdue on the road at Mackey Arena.

Purdue is one of four Big Ten schools still searching for a first conference win this season. The Boilermakers are 0-3 with losses to Maryland, Iowa and Michigan State. All three of those schools are ranked in the top 25, but they’re not quite the 15-0 Bruins. 

It is still early in the conference season, but currently UCLA is averaging 80.8 points per game in the Big Ten, second-best behind only Ohio State, while Purdue is 13th at 63.7 points per game. Purdue’s defense ranks even worse, having the No. 17 scoring defense thus far in conference play, allowing 79.67 points per game.

One of the Boilermakers’ strengths is their 3-point shooting, having shot above 40% from three in Big Ten action on 19 attempts per game. Their strength will be tested by one of the Bruins’ strong points. UCLA has held opponents to 24.7% shooting from three in its first year in the Big Ten, allowing just five makes per game.

A matchup to watch in Tuesday’s game is how Purdue’s freshman forward Lana McCarthy holds up against UCLA’s Lauren Betts. Betts is one of college basketball’s most dominant interior forces. While the 6’4” McCarthy has enjoyed a good start to her collegiate career, slowing down Betts will be a whole other challenge for her and Purdue.

UCLA’s Kiki Rice has high praise for her most recent opponent

UCLA’s Kiki Rice faced a tough one-on-one matchup against Indiana. This should make her better for future games.

The top-ranked UCLA Bruins were able to hold off the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday 73-62, even with star guard Kiki Rice having an off shooting game. 

Rice went just 3-13 from the field but was able to help UCLA in other ways, getting to the free throw line eight times and tallying seven rebounds and seven assists with two steals. The junior was matched up with Indiana’s Chloe Moore-McNeil, who’s made the Big Ten Defensive Team the previous two seasons with the Hoosiers. 

“She’s a great defender,” Rice said of Moore-McNeil. “Definitely one of the better ones that I’ve faced this season. I think her length and her ability to really move on the perimeter and get through screens and all that was definitely a tough matchup.”

Rice still ended with 12 points in Saturday’s game, but it was her first time since November she shot below 50% from the field.

“Watch the film and learn from it.” Rice said.

Rice is matching her career high in points per game with 13.2 while shooting a career best 56.5% from the field. 

Tuesday should be a better matchup for the Bruins’ offense, facing Purdue, which has the No. 17 scoring defense in the Big Ten. That is a sharp contrast with playing the conference’s No. 2 scoring defense in Indiana. UCLA will tip off against the Boilermakers on Tuesday at 4 p.m. Pacific time. The game will be aired on the Big Ten Network.

UCLA women are learning how to handle Big Ten road trips

UCLA’s bus ride to Indiana’s Assembly Hall took 39 minutes longer than expected. These and other problems will be addressed.

The No. 1 UCLA Bruins are a perfect 4-0 in Big Ten play in their first season in the conference. However, the Bruins are still learning how to handle their travel schedules for these new trips across the country for conference action.

“We had some adversity that was honestly out of our control,” UCLA’s head coach Cori Close said of the program learning on how to best travel to play their new Big Ten opponents. “We had a little bus transportation problem today.”

The team believed that the trip would be just a six-minute ride. It turned out to be 45 minutes, an issue that will be addressed in the future. The longer bus trip and early tip-off didn’t slow down the Bruins, who secured a 73-62 win over Indiana on Saturday. 

“We came in last night and I think I was talking to our Director of Operations today. I think there’s going to be a learning curve with all of these things and trying to learn, did we like when we came in? Next time do we want to adjust that?” Close said. “The noon tip isn’t tough because we practice at 9 a.m every single day, but you have to get up so much earlier for your pregame meal and for all the other things.”

While it’s an inconvenience for UCLA to labor through these problems, the entire Big Ten will have to adjust, with schools on the East Coast having to get familiar with visits to the West to face UCLA, USC, Washington and Oregon. 

Another complete Lauren Betts masterclass propels Bruins over Indiana

Lauren Betts was elite at both ends of the floor in UCLA’s decisive win at Indiana. Everything which makes her great was consistently displayed.

While it’s not news by any means that UCLA’s junior center Lauren Betts is one of the most dominant players in college basketball, Saturday’s win over Indiana proved to be another example of Betts’ greatness on both sides of the court.

Betts scored 25 points on 12-16 shooting with 12 rebounds while facing double-teams consistently throughout the game. Her impact on UCLA’s offense is always apparent, but her defensive impact can go a bit under the radar for the 15-0 Bruins.

UCLA’s defensive prowess was on full display in the first half on Saturday, keeping the Hoosiers at 16 points from the 1:09 mark in the first quarter to the 2:56 mark in the second quarter. Indiana scored five points in the entire second period.

“Lauren just is really difficult. She’s able to switch out and be mobile laterally when we need her to,” Close said of her center, who had two blocks and a steal on Saturday. “The two things that they (Indiana) really make a living on are their shuffle picks and back picks and the three-point shot. We were able to go over the top and funnel everything and Lauren was able to help on all of those picks.”

The 6’7” Betts certainly makes things difficult for opposing offenses, but opposing defenses try to return the favor by throwing multiple defenders Betts’ way to force the ball out of her hands. 

“In the first half I had a few possessions where I struggled figuring out the double-team and I had some turnovers but I think going back to the locker room and just figuring out how I can be patient in that and just finding my teammates,” Betts said of the double-teams. “We work on it every single day in practice, so it’s nothing new honestly to me. I’ve been dealing with it for a lot of my basketball career.”

Betts and the Bruins will look to improve to 16-0 on Tuesday in an away game against Purdue. 

No. 1 Bruins will their way to victory over Indiana, move to 15-0

The Bruins were not at their best, but they handled Indiana by 11. Cori Close spoke about the team’s toughness, which shone through on the road.

The No.1 UCLA Bruins will leave Bloomington still unbeaten after their 73-62 win on Saturday over Indiana. Even if the UCLA women’s basketball team had to sweat it out a bit, the Bruins moved to 15-0 for just the second time in program history. 

Despite the fact that UCLA led by double-digits nearly all of the fourth quarter, with Indiana not scratching to within eight points until there was less than a minute remaining in the fourth, things didn’t feel necessarily smooth for the top team in the country.

Not only did the team seem more reliant than ever on junior Lauren Betts, who had another terrific game on Saturday with 25 points and 12 rebounds, but the victory wasn’t a glamourous one. The Bruins relied more on their toughness than their talent, which is something that Bruins head coach Cori Close was happy to see. 

“Credit to them. I’m really impressed with the job that they did,” Close said of Indiana. “But I was also really impressed with our team. I’ve been really challenging them recently to be willing to win ugly. To be willing to win in a gritty way and not a pretty way.”

There have been plenty of highlights since the start of the season, but Saturday’s win felt a bit more translatable to March, when the Bruins will have to battle for wins, regardless of how much talent resides on their roster. 

“This wasn’t our best day,” Close said of her team, “but I thought the way they responded to adversity and willing to just win ugly, I’m impressed with.”

UCLA will stay in Indiana as it prepares for another Big Ten test on Tuesday against Purdue.

No. 1 Bruins will learn about themselves against Indiana

Let’s see how the Bruins respond to an earlybird start time on a Saturday in the Midwest.

The No. 1 ranked UCLA Bruins will head to the Eastern time zone for a conference game for the very first time in program history for Saturday morning’s Big Ten matchup against the 10-3 Indiana Hoosiers. UCLA women’s basketball will have to head over 2,000 miles east for their matchup against the Hoosiers and not only do the Bruins have a long flight ahead of them, they have to be ready for a 9:00 a.m. (Pacific Standard Time) tip-off. It won’t be the first time UCLA had to travel far for a game this season, after opening the season in France and heading to Hawaii for the Rainbow Wahine Showdown. It’s just the Bruins’ second Big Ten road game but the first came against old Pac-12 rival Washington up in Seattle. 

At 14-0, UCLA’s record is still without a blemish but head coach Cori Close said that it won’t stay that way unless the Bruins play team basketball more consistently.

“I’m really excited that we have such a tough opponent in a very hostile environment this very next game because I think it’s going to force us to be like ‘You want to keep winning? You better buck up,’” Close said of Saturday’s matchup. “You go into Bloomington with that level of urgency and concentration, we’re going to get beat.”

UCLA will have two games in Indiana before heading back to Westwood, facing Purdue on Tuesday. After this roadstand, the Bruins will return to the East Coast later this month for the Coretta Scott King Classic against Baylor before facing Rutgers and Maryland and then again in February to face Iowa and Wisconsin. UCLA will likely return to Indiana for the Big Ten tournament in March. 

Saturday’s game against Indiana will be aired on Fox, giving the national audience a chance to see how the Bruins respond to an early gametime.

UCLA’s Kiki Rice sets benchmark for 2025 season in pursuit of Final Four

Kiki Rice distributing 10 assists in a game will, if replicated, make UCLA extremely hard to beat.

The ball was moving for the No. 1-ranked UCLA Bruins on Wednesday in their 86-70 win over Michigan. The victory moved the Bruins to 3-0 in Big Ten play. UCLA racked up 29 assists, their second-most in a game this season, behind their 30-assist game against Long Beach State in a 102-51 win for the Bruins. Junior guard Kiki Rice certainly did her part, with 10 assists in 31 minutes while junior center Lauren Betts added five assists, many of which came out of Michigan double-teams on Betts in the post.

“A lot of that credit goes to Lauren,” Close said of Betts in the postgame interview. “Every time we got Lauren a touch, she didn’t necessarily score every time in the first half but we created a rotation and then we got an assist or an easy bucket off of her handling of double-teams.”

UCLA turned the ball over 15 times in the game, just one less than their season average, while boosting their assists per game to 21.1 on the season. The 15 turnovers was a major step in the right direction, following the Bruins turning the ball over 26 times last week against Nebraska. 

“When we start to try and do stuff on our own and think about ourselves, we’re not a good team,” Close said. “We’re just a talented bunch of individuals.”

Kiki Rice made sure the talented individuals worked together on the court with her 10 assists against Michigan. UCLA is currently fourth in the nation in assists but is 23rd when it comes to the team’s assist to turnover ratio at 1.32. The Bruins return to Big Ten action on Saturday on the road against Indiana.

Kiki Rice handing out more dimes needs to be a constant feature for UCLA women’s basketball. If Rice can become a 10-assist player in more games (she currently averages four per game), UCLA’s Final Four dream will very likely come true.